Florian Aigner

Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology have now shown that the atomic structure of the magnetite surface, which everybody had assumed to be well-established, has in fact been wrong all along. The properties of magnetite are governed by missing iron atoms in the sub-surface layer. “It turns out that the surface of Fe3O4 is not Fe3O4 at all, but rather Fe11O16”, says Professor Ulrike Diebold, head of the metal-oxide-research group at TU Wien (Vienna). The new findings have now been published in the journal “Science”.

Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology have now shown that the atomic structure of the magnetite surface, which everybody had assumed to be well-established, has in fact been wrong all along. The properties of magnetite are governed by missing iron atoms in the sub-surface layer. “It turns out that the surface of Fe3O4 is not Fe3O4 at all, but rather Fe11O16”, says Professor Ulrike Diebold, head of the metal-oxide-research group at TU Wien (Vienna). The new findings have now been published in the journal “Science”.